Day 7 - Help children.

December 1 thru December 25 I am posting about movies which reflect each day's focus for #LightTheWorld. 

Day 7

"Suffer the little children to come unto me." (Mark 10:14)

When I was in my early teens, I had a friend who loved to babysit and voiced how she could hardly wait to marry and have children of her own. I was keen on the marrying part, but I had no desire to have children.

That feeling was magnified when I was in college and browsed through a roommate's nursing textbook and saw photos of an actual childbirth. Not illustrations, mind you, but raw photos of childbirth in all its mess. I certainly was not naive, I knew labor and delivery was a painful ordeal, but for some reason seeing those photos shocked me. I became sooooo angry! I was angry at God for the pain of childbirth. I was angry at men who impregnate women. I was angry at women for accepting the process.

I stormed about the apartment, spewing fury, and stomped up the stairs as my roommate tried to console me with, "When you are in love, you will feel differently."

"If a man truly loves me, he will never ask me to go through that!" I yelled, and slammed my bedroom door.

A few years later, as my then fiancé and I discussed children, I was only slightly more open to the idea, and we agreed to wait seven years and then see how we felt about it. Well, within the first few months of marriage, the desire for children sprang to life and we began to try for a baby right away.

It took three years before I conceived and gave birth. Months upon months upon months of hoping and disappointment and tears. And I'm grateful for that time of disappointment because with each passing month, I understood more and more how much I really really really wanted a child! When our son was born, I held him in my arms and wept for joy. I never knew I could love a child so much.

Three years later we had a daughter. My love just kept on growing.

Fast forward to when several friends became grandparents and started crowing about their grandchildren, my husband said, "I don't get it. What's the big deal."

But, when grandchildren entered our world, he got it. For sure, grandchildren are a big deal!

Oh, how I am eternally grateful my heart opened to children in those first few months of marriage.

So... for today's theme, I selected films with children softening the heart of a curmudgeon.

Elf (2003)

(Okay, he's a grownup son, but he is childlike!)


Up (2009)

Despicable Me (2010)

Christmas Oranges (2012)

This one is not a movie, but the Netflix series Anne with an E (2017) reveals a beautiful character arc as the heart of Marilla Cuthbert (Geraldine James) opens to Anne (Amybeth McNulty). It's the Anne of Green Gables story, of course, but this particular re-telling drew me in. Very well-acted with wonderful cinematography.

Netflix trailer: Anne with an E

Today I will give service to my grandchildren.

Have any children (sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, neighbor kids...) wormed their way into your heart?


(Please be patient with the word verification process to post comments. I recently added that extra step due to spam.)